One of the traditional image forming apparatuses is an inkjet recorder including a plurality of recording devices having nozzles that eject ink onto a recording medium to form an image on the recording medium. If the size of a normal image to be formed is smaller than that of a recording medium in such an inkjet recorder, multiple normal images are laid out on a single recording medium to efficiently form images. After the normal images are formed, the recording medium including these normal images is cut along the outlines of the images to produce multiple recording mediums each including a normal image.
In an inkjet recorder, recording operation failure (ink ejection failure of nozzles) of a recording device leads to a reduction in the quality of the formed image. A technique is known for inspecting the recording devices and detecting recording operation failure of a recording device.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a technique of forming a test image in the margins of a recording medium around a normal image area and reading and analyzing the test image to detect recording operation failure of a recording device. Reading such a test image formed on the same recording medium as a normal image and detecting recording operation failure of a recording device can quickly and accurately determine the quality of the normal image formed on the recording medium.